Agent urges cruise lines to stop ‘back-door’ direct selling

Sovereign Cruise Club owner Stefan Shillito has issued a plea for cruise lines to become “easier to do business with”, urging them to stop “back door” direct selling and modernise outdated booking systems. 

In a webcast with Travel Weekly editor-in-chief Lucy Huxley, the luxury cruise specialist – who leads a 21-strong team in Berkshire – criticised the “counterproductive” practice of suppliers publicly supporting the trade while simultaneously deploying aggressive direct sales teams to poach agency clients.

“I know a couple of suppliers who say to the trade, ‘We support agents’, which is great, but [they] have aggressive direct sales teams taking bookings from agents,” he said.

Shillito noted that some “mass-market lines” even use onboard credit to try to tempt customers to book direct, warning that while they might save on commission by doing this, they also “lose the vital support of the agent”. 

He urged suppliers to trust luxury experts to secure bookings rather than acting out of desperation to capture sales direct.

Beyond sales tactics, Shillito highlighted significant operational barriers that he likened to the “20th century”, explaining: “Today, there are some luxury cruise lines where you still can’t book the product on their website as an agent.”

He also called for better transparency regarding product enhancements and ship refurbishments, noting that agents occasionally find out about multi-million-dollar upgrades from their customers rather than from the operators themselves.

“Cruise lines spend millions of dollars refitting a ship, but you don’t always get the details of what’s been done and what has changed,” he said.

“I encourage cruise lines to tell us more about the product and the changes they are making, because sometimes we find out from a client, which is not great.”

Shillito said another frustration was how some luxury operators close their reservation centres at 5pm on weekdays, or over the weekend, when businesses such as his tend to have “busy periods”, adding: “If we are open, you should be open.”

On the Middle East, Shillito acknowledged the opportunity for late deals in Europe and the Mediterranean in the wake of capacity freed up by a drop in American visitor numbers to Europe, but he cautioned that heavy discounting could “annoy” customers who booked early at higher rates.